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PMO branded environmental group an ‘enemy’ of Canada, affidavit says

Former employee at ForestEthics says Prime Minister's Office wanted the group's funding cut off over opposition to pipeline project.

By Allan WoodsOttawa Bureau

Tues., Jan. 24, 2012

OTTAWA—The Prime Minister’s Office allegedly labelled an environmental group an “enemy” of Canada for opposing a proposed west coast oil pipeline and threatened retribution if its funding was not cut off, according to the affidavit of a former employee.

The group, ForestEthics, operates in both Canada and the U.S. with money from Tides Canada, a charitable group that funds initiatives to tackle poverty, climate change and social problems.

ForestEthics is also a registered intervener at hearings on Enbridge’s planned Northern Gateway pipeline that would pump Alberta oil to freighters on the British Columbia coast destined for China.

But a former communications manager with ForestEthics says that senior federal officials referred to the group as an “enemy of the government of Canada” and an “enemy of the people of Canada” in a private meeting with the president of Tides Canada, Ross McMillan.

Andrew Frank, a 30-year-old instructor in the environmental protection program at Vancouver’s Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also claims the Prime Minister’s Office wanted McMillan to revoke funding to the organization.

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“The government of Canada has used the language of anti-terrorism, language that is violent and above the law, to describe legitimate critics of unsustainable resource development,” he said in an affidavit released to reporters Tuesday.

The Prime Minister’s Office denied the allegations.

In a telephone call with reporters, ForestEthics officials said they have no “direct confirmation” of the content of the conversations between McMillan and PMO officials.

“Our point is the tone is consistent with the tone we’re seeing from the Tory government,” said Tzeporah Berman the co-founder of ForestEthics.

“We share the concerns that Andrew Frank has raised,” said Valerie Langer, a campaigner with the group.

Earlier this month, Natural Resouces Minister Joe Oliver warned of the threat posed by “radical groups” backed by foreign money to hold up hearings into projects like the one underway for the Northern Gateway pipeline.

“These groups threaten to hijack or regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda,” Oliver wrote.

He said such projects are an important source of jobs, but if the regulatory process goes on too long, they achieve the critics’ goal of becoming “economically unviable.”

Frank says he first learned of the threats on Jan. 5 when ForestEthics staff were pulled into a meeting called by a senior supervisor, Pierre Iachetti.

Iachetti recounted that government officials gave McMillan “a set time period … by which to ‘cut loose’ ForestEthics, or the government would ‘take down’ all of Tides’ charitable projects,” Frank said in his affidavit, which was accompanied by internal e-mail correspondence and transcripts of voice mails.

“The assumption was that Mr. McMillan had already decided to dissolve ForestEthics’ public work in criticizing (the pipeline project) in order to save the rest of Tides’ charitable projects.”

The next evening, Jan. 6, Frank said the story was confirmed to him by Merran Smith, director of the Tides Canada Energy Initiative.

Last Friday, believing that both ForestEthics and Tides Canada had chosen to remain silent about the threats in order to avoid political reprisal, Frank went directly to McMillan and his vice-president, Sarah Goodman. He said they were “clearly agitated” to learn of his plan to reveal the existence of the threats.

In a statement Tuesday, McMillan said he would not divulge the contents of his conversations with government officials. But he said Frank wasn’t present at any of the conversations.

“His account of our conversations with government is inaccurate,” McMillan said, without providing any details.

Over the weekend, ForestEthics shut off access to Frank’s email account and he was fired for “unprofessional conduct.”

“No one in an organization should be acting unilaterally,” said Berman. “He was let go because he broke confidentiality and trust.”

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